because base ten is too boring

I've recently been on a real scaling-back-digital-distractions kick. Most
recently, I read Deep Work and Digital Minimalism (both by Cal Newport)
back to back. I highly recommend them. They really confirmed and validated my
efforts to cull distraction in my life, to live more intentionally.

After finishing up Ditial Minimalism, I happened to find my Bullet
Journal that I had purchased a few months ago when I stumbled across that
system. I had never gotten around to starting it -- my perfectionist tendencies
keep me from starting a lot of things that could contribute value to my life. I
want to wait until the perfect time and when I'm perfectly prepared. But that's
probably a good subject for another day.

I decided now was as good a time as any to try the insanely popular analog
method for organizing and tracking your life.

I'm not here to review the method itself. You can hit Ryder's short tutorial
on his website (Ryder Carroll is the creator of the Bullet Journal
system).

What I'm here to report is that it's a really solid system. If you look for
examples on social media, the crazy artistic spreads can be intimidating. But
when you look at the core of the system, none of that is important. The system
itself is simple, maintainable, and built on core principles that really help
maintain focus towards what's important in your life. And it's also more
flexible than any system I've ever explored -- which is important because of
how different our lives are.

The big question going forward for me is the balance between BuJo (as it's
often abbreviated -- I still think it sounds vaguely dirty) and the rest of my
existing system: a combination of calendars and Omnifocus tasks where I store
everything. I often joke that if it's not on my calendar or in omnifocus, it
doesn't exist.

I don't anticipate moving away from Omnifocus or my digital calendars.
Omnifocus is just too well-suited to remembering repeated tasks (my quarterly
reminder for spraying for bugs just popped up today, for example). BuJo does
have ways of dealing with these long term repeating tasks, but I'd rather find
what value BuJo can add, rather than trying to shoehorn my whole life into a
system that doesn't automatically share with my wife, like my calendar does.

I think what it adds for me is an easy way to keep track of what happens day to
day, along with forced re-evaluation as to whether something is actually
important in my life. Bullet Journaling involves a lot of migrating --
rewriting old uncompleted tasks in the new day/week/month that you're working
on. This friction is intentional -- if it's not worth the few seconds required
to rewrite a task, that task can probably be abandoned. This built-in
intentionality is part of why the system is attractive to me.

Bullet Journaling is just one of my many efforts to reclaim intentionality and
focus in my life. I have high hopes that it will continue to be useful. If it
intrigues you, give it a try! It requires very little investment -- just a
notebook and something to write with -- along with a desire to bring more focus
to your life.

In recent years, I have struggled with my attention. I have struggled to focus
on much of anything in my life. I haven't been able to read books quickly or
effectively; I have struggled to get into that superfocused programming state
at work.

I assumed that perhaps I had undiagnosed ADHD. Who knows, that may even be
true. But increasingly I think it's more likely that I've done this to myself.

Since I got my first smartphone in 2009, I have been in a constant mode of
stimulation. Around that same time I discovered podcasts and audiobooks. These
were a boon to me, especially on commutes. Suddenly I felt like that time was
no longer wasted.

Social media became ubiquitous. Reddit had a constant stream of fascinating or
interesting content. Twitter vied for my attention. Algorithms worked to keep
me engaged all of the time.

It's not an interesting story, nor an original one. Our reading lists are full
of books about breaking up with our phones, deleting social media,
and reclaiming our focus. But the one who finally made me see the problems
in my own life was CGP Grey. On the (amazing) podcast Hello Internet,
he explored this problem in his own life. His story was remarkably similar
to mine. I especially empathized with his problems with podcasts. Don't get me
wrong -- podcasts are incredible. The world of podcasts has never been better,
and podcasts are one of only a few things that haven't been consumed by
algorithms (yet). They are a net positive in the world. But my problems with
podcasts are a symptom of something larger (in myself).

I found myself rarely without headphones in my ears. The breaking point was
when I found myself putting my Airpods in for the 30 seconds that it took me
to go to the bathroom. Silence made me physically uncomfortable. I used
headphones as an excuse to avoid interacting with people. It was a real
problem.

Another problem area I identified was slack (and to a lesser extent, email).
Having these amazing tools available all the time on my phone (and open all day
on my computer), I found myself self-interrupting constantly throughout the day
to see if there was something new in the #videogames channel, the #photography
channel, or in our team or service channels. Even when there were no
notifications, I would interrupt and check my slack or email. A combination of
my proclivity to procrastinate and my brains addiction to these inputs was
letting me get nothing done.

It was also encroaching on my family life. I would open slack when I first woke
up in the morning and find a notification from someone in India. Rather than
waiting until my workday started, I would reply and end up working for an
hour. The same thing would happen on weekends or in the evenings.

My solution

I cut out all podcasts and audiobooks for almost a month. This was just a reset
-- there was never any chance I would stay away from podcasts. But I needed
some time, and needed some silence.

I've since resumed podcasts, but don't listen to them first thing in the
morning, or before bed. I try to limit them to commutes and chores, or times
when I consciously decide to listen (and decide it won't interrupt my
interactions with my family).

With permission from my manager, I instituted (and communicated) a new policy
for email and slack. I would only check them at the beginning and end of the
workday, and never outside of work hours or on the weekends. I gave out my cell
number and told people to call me instead.

I disabled most notifications on my phone, including all email notifications.
(My personal email is never urgent, either). I completely signed out of my work
slack.

I also set a goal to read for an average of an hour a day.

Note that I wasn't trying to reduce screen time. I love video games and have no
desire to stop playing them. But I wanted my time to be used with
intentionality -- to never feel like I've been wasting time on useless phone
games and pointless reddit threads.

Did it work?

I think so! I'm still in the middle of it, but I'm getting more done at work
than I have in months. I'm reading more than I have in years. And my phone
pickups have fallen by more than half. I interact more with my family, and am
becoming OK with silence.

So?

I know, this is long and rambling. And perhaps you don't have any of the same
problems that I have and continue to fight.

But if any of this resonated with you, I encourage you to make a change. Your
solutions may not look like mine -- everyone has different goals and needs. But
we need to control our own lives.

Technology and the internet are amazing tools. Let's use them, rather than
letting them use us.

Many of us have been in positions where hiring for diversity has been a focus.
There might be a temptation to say that this is discriminatory. "We're passing
up more qualified candidates for diverse ones!"

But diversity is about more than skin color or gender -- it's also about the
different ideas and points of view that come from different life experiences.
These are real qualifications. Their value-add is hard to quantify, but that
doesn't mean the value isn't there.

Finding these people is not easy. We have to be willing to go outside our
normal networks. And even once we find and hire these people we have to work
hard to overcome biases and give them an equal place in our team, both in pay
and in voice.

Hiring managers can fix the pay gap. Offer people what they're worth, even if
that means countering with a higher offer.

Voice is harder -- make sure credit is attributed correctly for all team
members. Watch for interruptions from other team members. Make sure everyone is
heard.

Two-thirds of the 33,000 gun deaths annually in America are suicides. That's
more than 20,000 people killing themselves annually.

This is why I want to talk about gun control. I believe it would also reduce
gun-related homicides and accidental gun deaths, a result that would also be
amazing. But they're much harder to argue about because we don't have enough
data and there are too many guns in circulation and blah blah blah blah.

I want to reduce the number of suicides.

BUT COLTON, PEOPLE DON'T NEED GUNS TO KILL THEMSELVES. THEY'LL FIND A WAY!

While there are many other ways people can kill themselves besides guns,
readily-available guns offer the least friction. There's no roap to tie,
there's no stool to fetch, there's no blade and bathtub. Pull the trigger and
you're done.

And we know that removing means of suicide coincides with a drop in suicide
rates. Why is this?

It's because most people don't really want to die.

They're looking for an excuse to live. Any excuse. They're lazy, like you and
me and everyone else. If it's hard to commit suicide, they'll talk themselves
out of it. Every minute of delay from the point of decision improves their
chances of survival.

This is an aspect of suicide I had never considered until I listened to a
podcast on the subject. It's called
means reduction and it works.

Even if gun control didn't lower the instances of criminal gun use (though I'm
convinced it would), wouldn't it be worthwhile to save thousands of lives lost
to suicide or accidental death? Shouldn't it at least be a conversation? Are
your guns really that important?

I'm not necessarily saying we need a complete gun ban. It's a bit of a
non-starter and I don't think it would ever happen in the US. But there are
things we could do to add friction and insight into firearm acquisition that
could make a real difference. But first we have to have a more cogent
conversation than the normal "BUT LIVES!" "BUT 2ND AMMENDMENT!" bullshit.

The ctrl key would act as escape if short-pressed with no other key.
Because I rebind caps lock to control anyway, that puts both control
and escape in perfect reach of my left pinky. No more reaching up or down
for either key. It's amazing!

F19 was mapped to cmd-ctrl-shift-option. Why F19? Because it is on no
modern keyboard, and has no default usage in modern operating systems. So I
bound it to a key on my ergodox, and use it as a
hyper
modifier key. However, I went a step further, and made short presses on
this key input cmd-space (the spotlight shortcut). Surprisingly convenient.

The left and right shift keys would act as left and right parenthesis when
short-pressed with no other keys.

These hacks have become second nature, part of my muscle memory. Losing them
would be terrible for my productivity. So I waited for Karabiner to be updated
to Sierra.....cut to today, 9 months after Sierra was released, and Karabiner
still has not been updated.

Today I found out that a good friend of mine quit Facebook. I was astounded --
he had just been filled with such righteous indignation about the election, and
big ideas about the change that we needed to bring about. How could he bring
about that change if he removed the best tool for talking to people?

But the more we talked, the more convinced I was that he had it right.

You take a little bit of it so you can hate the other side. And it tastes
kind of good. And you like how it feels. And there's a gentle high to the
condemnation, right? And you know you're right, right? You know you're right.

Social media is at the center of this. Facebook is designed to give you this
high. It is designed to give you exactly what you want to see/hear, because
that keeps you coming back and lets them serve you more ads.

We craft echo chambers for ourselves. We are increasingly convinced we are
right and the other side is wrong, and if we ever do happen to come in contact
with someone from the other side, we talk past each other until we're blue in
the face. Anger and indignation prevail, reason and empathy fail.

In the last three days I've seen very few productive conversations happening on
social media. We try to empathize, we try to make our points. But without the
human connection of one-on-one communication, we make no progress. We high five
those that agree with us and ignore those who don't. We may not even realize
we're ignoring anyone -- the Facebook algorithm is making that choice for us.

In his last
post
before quitting Facebook, my friend Mike made some cogent points about our
rejection of fact in favor of our echo chambers:

After a century of prosperity, we started to believe that we knew better than
what newspapers told us, or scientists told us, or economists told us. We
stopped believing in classical books by great thinkers and started believing in
podcasts. In even the best cases, we fired articles at each other instead of
arguments. What’s more, we thought that our skepticism of expertise was the
fault of the expert and not our own. We built the Internet in hopes that it
would foster the greatest exchange of ideas in human history. Hopes of that
nobility have been diminished.

This election is a lot of things but above all, it’s cultural hubris boiled
over.

He goes on to talk about our rejection of fact-based media in favor of our
little social media worlds:

Collectively, we rejected newspapers, nearly bankrupted them and then
wondered what happened to the fourth estate. I’m not so sure that we should be
as outraged as ashamed.

One of my favorite quotes:

If you are unwilling to accept facts that do not align with your view of
reality, you are the most dangerous kind of coward.

But Mike doesn't leave us without a call to action.

So, if you want to be angry, be angry — for a while, at least.

When you’re done, though, go out and buy a newspaper subscription to every
single publication that you can afford to support. Do this not just for papers
which lean in your direction but any paper which has reputable, hard-working
reporters who are dedicated to shining a light where it needs to shine. Read
all of them. Every day.

When they report the facts, accept them as facts — not as a hypothesis which
has its truth contingent on the institution which presented it.

And, too, when they editorialize, accept that as opinion from people who
understand the world in a sophisticated way. Admire that sophistication, even
if you do not agree with its conclusions.

Do not conflate facts and opinions. Even if you are wrong five percent of the
time and bias sneaks into reporting, accept it and move on. Stop throwing
babies out with bathwater.

Finally, find a friend, if you can, and see where there might be common
ground to stand on.

The waters rise fast and we only survive if we hold on to each other.

Stronger together.

Last night I spent a solid two hours talking to two of my best friends while we
ate tacos after playing basketball. It was a productive, respectful
conversation. I learned things and grew, and we didn't just talk past each
other. Granted, this was helped by the fact that we have similar views, but it
was refreshing all the same.

I want more of those nights. I want to have smaller, real conversations with
people. I want to learn and grow. I want to be more than just retweets and
likes.

So here's my plan: I plan to get back to my subscription to The Economist and
The Washington Post. I plan to read fact-based reporting and editorializing and
form my own opinions.

But as importantly, I have to get out of my echo chamber. And I'm less and less
willing to feed into the machine that caused this: Facebook.

In a few days, after most people who will see this post have seen it, I will
likely disable my Facebook account.

Twitter is harder. I love Twitter: It's the poison I crave. But I think it has
to go as well, at least for awhile. So I'll be taking a break.

But that doesn't mean that I don't want to talk. In fact, I want to talk more
than ever. But I don't want to do it on Facebook or Twitter.

Call me. Text me. Let's go grab a drink (soda for me) or some lunch and chat.
Let's make real relationships, and have real conversations.

I mean, she fought very hard. Hillary has worked very long and very hard over
a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service
to our country.

I mean that very sincerely. Now it is time for America to bind the wounds of
division, have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and
independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as
one united people.

Hopefully this is the Trump that will enter office as our next president.

Today I'm less worried about Trump as president than I am about the hate,
mistrust, racism, and sexism that his campaign made mainstream. He validated
monstrous behaviors.

Read every story in that link. Think about what it would be like to live in
fear of the people around you.

As a straight white male, I'm blessed with safety from acts like this. I will
wield that safety in defense of those who are not. I won't allow casual or
joking racism. If I see someone being harassed, I will step in. I will serve
and love those around me. And I will pray for those who are living in fear
today.

For much of my life I identified as a Republican. In the last few years I've
found myself identifying less and less with that party. Not to say I'm a
Democrat; both parties have serious problems.

This year I voted for Hillary. Not because she was the lesser of two evils.
She's far from perfect, and I don't agree with her on everything. But she's an
accomplished politician and a qualified presidential candidate. I like the
strength with which she has dealt with Trump's attacks. I voted for her because
I'm With Her.

This is probably not a popular opinion. But I'm trying to be true to my
opinions rather than just hiding behind the "Trump is a monster" argument.